Reflection Essay - Fresh off the Boat

Cassie Quaglia        

Television reflection

ASL 101

11/6/16

                The show I had watched for 30 minutes was and episode of “Fresh Off The Boat.” My reflection on watching the show with no sound and no closed captioning was that it was difficult to understand what was going on. I had tried to lip reading what each actor and actress was saying to figure out what was going on and it made it even more difficult to understand. I imaging while I was watching this show this should what was everyone was saying and what emotion everyone was feeling. I feel the hurt that deaf and hard of hearing people have when they try to watch something and they cannot hear or be able to read what is going on.  I tired to write down what I saw in each scene to figure out was  going on. I felt like I was really deaf or hard of hearing while I was watching this show without sound and no close captioning. I feel that you need captioning to figure out what was going and to better understand what each actor and actress was saying.  Knowing that there are deaf and hard of hearing people the world that are trying to do the same things as hearing people can be challenging. While watching this show I had to rewatch it to figure out what was the plot of this episode. It was challenging to not be able to use captioning to better understand what the episode was about. If I was able to watch this show with captioning I would. I feel bad how deaf people have to try to lip read if people do not sign that are taking to them. In this episode of this show it was show how a Chinese woman was trying to communicate with a man who spoke Spanish. While watching this show with no sound and no captioning was teaching me a new way that I can watch a show, that I would try again.

The show I had watched for 60 minutes was an episode of “This Is Us.” My reflection was that when I was watching the show with closed captioning I had a hard time understanding each person emotions and how each person was acting towards each other.  How I watched this show was first I watch it with no sound and with captioning to try to get a feel if I was deaf or hard of hearing to understand on how they have to watch a tv show.  While watching the show with caption and no sound I was trying to imagine what each of the person voices would sound like.  I was feeling upset for real deaf and hard of hearing people because they do not get to understand the show like hearing people would.  I understand how deaf and hard of hearing would make their own assumption on what the show is about because they cannot hear the real emotion of each actor or actress in the show.  When I was in high school there was this deaf girl in my history class and every time we watch a video in class we had the close captioning on and it would take her longer to understand what was going on in the video.  I had the same feeling when I was watching this show with close captioning on.  I was trying to write down what I was thinking what was going on in the show while I was watching the show to be understand what was going on in the show. My overall experience was that watching the show with captioning on was a great experience because it made me see a different way how other people watch tv and how they would interpret the show. I had realized that I would try watching tv with captioning on more often because sometimes I may miss what someone had said and having the captioning on would help me get what I missed that they had said. However closed captioning had taught me a new way of doing something that made me want to do again the next time I watch tv. They only thing that I did not like about watching the tc show with closed captioning is that the captioning can go a little fast and was hard to read quick and was not that easy to understand what the person was saying.